One To Go
by catfoxy
Summary: Sometimes you get answers. Even to questions you never asked out loud in the first place. Sometimes those answers are not what you expect. And sometimes they are quite painful. – Sequel to 'Four Orders To Go' - OC and Benji POV


_Author's Note: _

_This is a short sequel to "Four Orders To Go". Since I was asked what happened to the team, whether they are dead or merely lost, I decided to write a little follow-up. I'm not gonna spell it out, but it'll make things a bit clearer, as far the personal outcome of that rescue mission is concerned._

_Summary:_

_Sometimes you get answers. Even to questions you never asked out loud in the first place. Sometimes those answers are not what you expect. And sometimes they are quite painful. – Sequel to 'Four Orders To Go' - OC and Benji POV_

**One To Go**

It was about a month later. At around 10am. On a Wednesday.

It was a slow day, the morning rush over and it wasn't lunch-time yet. Jenny was just putting away the new pretzels from the oven, when she heard the door open behind her.

As she turned around, she expected to see another customer walk in through the door, probably desperate for some coffee.

And she was half-right.

There was another customer.

But he didn't look all that desperate for coffee. He looked more…lost.

But that wasn't the biggest shock for Jenny.

It was that she knew this customer.

And today wasn't even Tuesday.

Today, he also wasn't in a hurry. The laptop was nowhere in sight, either.

As the man walked up to the counter, she could see him give her a hesitant smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. Something told her that this wasn't just due to that still healing, painful-looking scar on his cheek.

It was like he had simply lost the energy to smile.

Cautiously, not exactly knowing what she could do for him, she asked:

"Uhm…would you like your usual tea?"

For a moment, the man seemed to think about that question, but then he shook his head, slowly, before he eventually said:

"I would like a coffee, please. Just a coffee. Whichever way you want to make it."

She normally would have told any customer at that point that she wasn't allowed to prepare a beverage 'any way she liked', but seeing that his thoughts were clearly on something else, something much more important to him than coffee, she decided to screw the rules and fix him a coffee, with a bit of milk and some sugar. And a cookie on the house.

He absent-mindedly thanked her for the coffee, and – realizing that she wasn't taking his money for the cookie – he also thanked her for that, before he took both and walked over to a table in the corner of the room.

He looked ...unhinged.

That was the best way Jenny could describe it.

Like he had lost something that normally gave him stability.

Like he had lost... _someone_.

She didn't know how that figured into the healing scar on his face, or the – as she now realized – careful way in which he moved, favouring his left leg, but as she kept watching him, she noticed that he wasn't even looking at the coffee before him.

Instead, she saw out of the corner of her eyes how he seemed to be taking something out of his jacket. It looked like a photo.

She couldn't see what was on it, but she saw the man look at it, intensely…with an expression on his face that was a cross between a sad smile and deep regret…it was something that clearly pained him. She couldn't tell how she knew, but something told her that whatever was on that photo, it had to have something to do with the reason why he hadn't showed up here in the past four weeks.

She wondered what happened to him.

She also wondered if, perhaps, just perhaps, it might be related to her other three missing customers.

She hadn't seen them again.

And something in the way this one man before her looked at that photo in his hands, made her get this strange feeling. The feeling that she never would see these other three people ever again, either. That whoever was on that photo - was dead now. And that this man, sitting here now before her, at the table in the corner, looked like he went into a war with people he knew, only to come back as the only survivor.

In the end, she saw the man carefully put the photo away again into the pocket of his jacket. He still hadn't touched his coffee. But by now, she knew he hadn't come here for the coffee in the first place. Not this time. He was here for something else. Some memory of better times, perhaps. She just wasn't sure if it was working for him.

She then saw how, after a long time of just sitting there, he slowly picked up the cookie from next to the cup, looking at it, as if he wondered why there was anything in this world that was still meant to bring joy.

As she saw him look at the cookie, his gaze suddenly came up, and his eyes met hers across the room. He seemed to have known she was watching him in that instant. But instead of being angry at her, he simply nodded, and he tried once more for a grateful smile – this time almost managing it, albeit with a sad undertone – before he slowly got up from the chair. He left the coffee untouched at the table.

But taking the cookie with him, he then softly wished her goodbye, as he walked towards the door and left the coffee shop, the door softly falling closed behind him.

She never saw him again.

THE END


End file.
